The Castle in the Forest by Norman Mailer Page A

breast-feeding since its absence could stimulate ugly energies we could later employ, he was more tolerant in cases of first-degree incest. Then he wanted the mother to be close indeed to the child. All the better for us! (A monster is most effective when it can call on mother-love with which to charm new acquaintances.)
    Excretory dramas also offer advantages. A dirty butt on a baby can send a signal—the mother may be a potential client for us. The opposite is also of use. Klara proves a fine example here. She always kept a clean house. Her rooms at the Pommer Inn were now as spotless as any home tended by several good maids. The furnishings gleamed. So, too, was Adi’s pip-squeak of an anus kept as immaculate as an opal, small and glistening, and of that, too, did I approve—an incestuary must always be kept aware of the importance of his or her excrement, even if it comes down to a little asshole that is forever being polished.

2
    N ot long after Adolf was born, Alois decided to leave the Pommer Inn. This move amounted to his twelfth change of address in Braunau over fourteen years. But Alois had good words for the Pommer: “It has
elegance.
I don’t know that I would use the word for much else in this little city.” He had a dozen such remarks to enliven a hundred situations of small talk. “Women are like geese,” he was ready to say. “You can recognize them from behind.” Heavy tavern laughter would follow, even if none of them could explain what was so particular about the rear end of a goose. Or, when speaking to fellow professionals: “To pick out a smuggler is easy. Either they look like the wretches they are, or they are too good to be true. They dress too well, they speak too well, and the amateurs always work very hard at looking you in the eye.”
    When asked, however, why he had moved from the Pommer Inn after a residence that had lasted for four years, he would shrug. “I like a change,” he would say. The truth was that he had used up the waitresses, chambermaids, and cooks at the Pommer who were not too old or too ugly, and he could have added (and did to one or two friends), “When a woman goes dry on you, change your house. That can put a little oil in her.”
    On the day when the Hitler family left the Pommer Inn, he had, however, a most uncharacteristic thought. It was that fate could yet choose him for high position. I will remark that his idea of high position was to become Chief Customs Officer for the provincial capital of Linz. Indeed, fate would yet give him exactly that post. Never superstitious (except when he was), Alois decided that the shift from the Pommer Inn to a rented house on Linzerstrasse was a good move. He and Klara both agreed that they needed more room, and now they had it. Of course, there were no females in the attic, but he could manage with that. He had nosed out a woman who lived on his route home from the tavern. He had to pay for the privilege by purchasing a small gift from time to time, but then the rent on Linzerstrasse was low. It was a dreary house.
    All the while, he fought against falling in love with his wife. She infuriated him. If ants were like bees and had a Queen for whom they labored, then Klara was Queen of the ants, for she commanded his skin to crawl, his crotch to itch, and his heart to toll in his chest—all of this coming from no more than Klara keeping to her half of the divided bed. He had to think of how lovingly she had looked at him on the night of her wedding. She had worn a dark silk dress, rose colored with a white collar—that much white she allowed herself as a bride—and on her white forehead, she had teased some charming curls. At her breast was pinned the one piece of jewelry she possessed, a small green cluster of glass grapes looking real enough to mislead a man into reaching for one. And then there were her eyes—no mistake! He had to fight against falling in